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BAC AT st. PETER’S CHURCH, VERE STREET
f ON DECEMBER 8, 1907 ae

We BY THE |
/ERY REV. W. PAGE ROBERTS, D.D.

- DEAN OF SALISBURY 4

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FAREWELL

DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

FAREWELL

H Sermon

PREACHED AT ST. PETER’S CHURCH, VERE STREET
ON DECEMBER 8, 1907

BY THE

VERY REV. W. PAGE ROBERTS, D.D.

DEAN OF SALISBURY

Privately Printed

TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF

FRIENDS DEPARTED

AND TO

FRIENDS WHO STILL SURVIVE

ATTACHED TO THE AUTHOR'S MINISTRY
AT ST. PETER’S, VERE STREET

HE ‘DEDICATES THIS SERMON

Tue DEANERY, SALISBURY:
January 1, 1908

https :/larchive.org/details/farewell0

This Sermon ts printed at the instance of some
of the Congregation of St. Peter's, Vere Street, and
by one of them, Reginald J. Smith.

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SERMON

‘ The world passeth away and the lust thereof, but

he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’
1 St. John, ii. 17.

THERE are moments in our lives when we
have special reasons and powerful impulses
for looking into our position and posses-
sions, and for seeing clearly how we stand
in relation to the forces which environ us
and the possibilities which confront us. We
can scarcely do this when we are over-
whelmed by pressing affairs, or restless with
unsleeping ambitions, or fascinated by those
absorbing affections which make sleep a
wasteful necessity unless it be a delightful
dream. We certainly cannot do it when
disease mingles fact and fancy in feverish

hallucinations, or pain makes ceaseless

8

moanings, or weakness subdues to deadly
weariness, or old age is feeble in mind
and body and totters onward to the grave.
We cannot survey life and calmly adjudi-
cate upon its significance in the hours which
lead to death. Only now and again do we
stand still and strong and ask, Where am
I? What am I? Where am I going?
Then, like a great surprise, we realise how
marvellously things have changed since we
first looked upon the world with mature
intelligence ; how great are the changes in
ourselves. So powerful is the impression
of change that we are led to exclaim, Is
it all change? Is there anything abiding ?
Is there what the old Hebrew literature
poetically described as a rock of ages amid
the whirling sand-storms and mocking
mirages of this ever-changing life which is
to many so dusty, dull, and drear? Health,
friends, fortunes, governments, social ideals,
scientific theories, religious creeds and or-

ganisations change and pass away. Human

9

life seems like an endless procession ever
moving to an abyss which swallows all up
to be seen no more. Is there nothing
certain, nothing abiding ? we ask in the brief
periods when the movement seems to stop
for a moment, when ‘we look before and
after and sigh for what is not.’ Is there
nothing which remains amid the onward
movement to the speechless gulf of death ?
I stand still for a moment, and backward
cast an eye on this long ministry of mine,
and see that it has been marked by startling
changes. Large increases of knowledge
have been made which have modified many
old conceptions, given new aspects to many
old-established theories, and removed some
from the place they have long held in the
popular creed. Such changes have acted, it
may be unconsciously, upon me as they
have upon you, and we have been varying
together. Am I, as I close this ministry,
to cry to you, like a singer of sad songs,
that ‘ nought endures but mutability’ ; or can

Io

I, after deep reflection and from the bottom
of my heart, declare that, if some beliefs
have vanished and others have been trans-
formed, in Christ Jesus there is a sure
foundation for thought and life beyond the
action of time and all its powers of change?
Yes! It is sowith me to-day. This in the
past I have maintained with you. This is
what I shall continue to proclaim in the days
which may still be mine: that ‘ Jesus Christ
is the same yesterday and to-day and for
ever.”

Some one recently asked—so I have been
told—and asked with a tone of regret—
whether I was not growing more orthodox.
If being orthodox means being faithful to
truth as it emerges and demands recognition,
then I pray that I may be more and more
orthodox until the perfect day. If being
orthodox means incapability of progress and
an obstinate faith in the infallibility of the
past, then I pray that I may not be orthodox ;

and, if 1 know myself, 1 am sure I am not.

II

But, it may be said to me, You are not
altogether ignorant of what science and criti-
cism have made known. You have recog-
nised weak places and shaken buttresses in
the structure of ecclesiastical religion. If
now you affirm that Christianity is the one
thing sure amid all the dislocations and
demolitions which have taken place—when
even the artisan of the clubs scoffs at
Christianity and looks to Socialism for the
regeneration of society—if this is the case,
then it may be said to me, You have lost
your old receptivity, you have sought shelter
in obscurantism, or you are acting a part in
a drama of illusion, or preferment has sub-
dued you to prudence ; and, in the worst
sense of the word, you are more orthodox.
Now it is a fact that certain theories once
supposed to be inseparable constituents of
the Christian system have been so shaken
and shattered that they are but historic ruins
which men pensively behold but cannot in-
habit. The doctrine of the verbal infallible

12

inspiration of every verse of the Bible has
now but few advocates. Once it was uni-
versal. The authorship of the sacred books
is eagerly discussed and has become an open
question. The doctrine of tormented and
eternal sin maintained in existence by Divine
Power is now rejected by many devout
souls; and other doctrines, once held in
crude, materialised forms, have assumed
more rational and spiritual aspects. Good
Christian people have adapted themselves to
these changes, and now regard them with un-
troubled acquiescence. Butin the days when
some of us were young, the first movements
in the direction of such changes aroused the ©
fury which piety is not incapable of exhibit-
ing. We can remember the violence with
which the authors of “ Essays and Reviews” |
were assailed. But the writer of the first of
them became an honoured archbishop of
Canterbury. We can remember the turbu-
lent cries of convocations and congregations

when Bishop Colenso popularised some of

13

the conclusions of German scholarship. But
High Churchmen may be seen accepting
them. We can remember that a fascinating
and religious volume called “‘ Ecce Homo ”
was declared, by perhaps the most useful
Englishman of the last century, to be
“vomited from the jaws of hell.” The
» memorable minister of this church, who has
had a formative influence upon the religious
thought of Nonconformity as well as upon
Anglicanism, and who is said to be repre-
sented by the late Bishop Westcott, by Dale
the Congregationalist, and by the present
Bishop of Birmingham, was expelled from
his professorial chair in King’s College
because of certain theological opinions. But
the teachings of the saintly Maurice, which
have been assimilated by leaders of the High
Church party, were condemned by the
learned and brilliant Professor of Divinity in
the University of Oxford—Dr. Mozley—
who said that the action of King’s College
was ‘a substantial duty to the Church and

14

nation in suppressing at once a teaching that
interfered with the foundation of religion
and morals.’ The late Archdeacon Denison
wrote to Liddon of ‘Gore’s miserable
heresy’; and Liddon replied, ‘I have tried
to tell Gore as explicitly as I can how wrong
I think his language.’ But the Gore so
sternly condemned is the present Bishop of
Birmingham, one of the brightest ornaments
of the High Church party. So that all the
original and leading minds in the Church,
be they High or Broad, have had to bear
the reproaches of the timid and the paralysed.
Yes! In a few years things have marvel-
lously changed. Many an old belief has
been swept away or only hides itself in the
sects of obscurity. But Christianity has
not been swept away though High Church-
men have become disciples of Colenso, and
Ritualists are to be found who allow the
hopes for which Maurice suffered. But it
will be said, if modifications of old beliefs
have taken place why do you not change such

By

of your old formulas as do not conform to the
more enlightened ideas of the present? Be-
cause large numbers of Churchmen have not
accepted the new ideas and are content with
the existing formulas. Such ideas as they
have they imagine to be the very same ideas
which the framers of these formulas pos-
sessed. Not that they have very seriously
looked into what they call their beliefs or
are familiar with the ideas of past ages.
The sound of the formula is satisfying and
a change would be disturbing. ‘ Desiring
no change they wish for no ideas.’ But it
is as impossible for any man to think exactly
the thoughts, with their assemblage of asso-
ciations, which the Fathers of the Church
thought, as it is for us to think exactly the
thoughts which will be thought centuries
hence. Change is incessant. Change is
universal, however in its continuous pro-
cess it be unperceived. Only when change
is perceptible, considerable, and generally

realised can formal change be profitably

16

made. Otherwise to change might do hurt
to thousands of simple saintly souls; and
‘through thy knowledge shall the weak
brother perish for whom Christ died’? As
Newman said in the Apologia, ‘There is a
time for everything, and many a man desires
a reformation of an abuse, or the fuller
development of a doctrine, or the adoption
of a particular policy, but forgets to ask him-
self whether the right time iscome.’ Every
party and fraction of the Church would like
some change made to suit itself in the
services of the Church. But our duty is to
think of others and not merely of our-
selves. Only when the majority of a church
advances to the position of the forward
spirits can reconstruction take place, and
the advances of whole churches are slow
indeed. Therefore imperfect forms must
be endured until a general advance has
been secured; and they may be endured
and profitably employed even by the most
advanced spirits. For these forms indicate

ti]

that which is essential and that which is un-
changing. They contain the germs of higher
developments, and without them the higher
developments could not have been attained.
Implicitly they hold the higher truth. The
essence of Christianity is the Spirit of
Christ. This is the soul of His religion,
and the formulas are but attempts of fallible
men to give expression to this Eternal Spirit
and the Divine facts on which it depends.
All such attempts, however commendable,
are but provisional. New modes of expres-
sion must from time to time be required by
changing minds, which are the products of
changing knowledge. Even the dullest
change. They can’t help changing. Language
is ever changing,and changing language is the
manifestation of changing mind. But what-
ever the changes which loyalty to truth as it
is revealed makes necessary, they will only
imperfectly symbolise the Eternal Spirit, the
Holy Spirit of Christ, which He Himself
exhibited in the words, ‘I came not to do

18

Mine own Will but the Will of the Father
which sent Me.’ Let that Spirit of Christ
be supreme in you, and the forms will be
etherealised, however advanced your ideas,
and in them and through them you will see
your Lord. This I specially say to you who
are impatient with and complain of certain
forms and expressions of the Church’s ser-
vice. Abide by your Church and help to
secure its progress, and show sympathy and
consideration for the weaker brethren. Do
not leave your Church to the dominance of
the dull and to certain decay.

This, then, is the abiding, to do the will
of God as it becomes revealed. But that
will and word of God are not only to
be learned from Bibles and Prayer-books.
They are to be learned from the activities
and laws of nature and from the revelations
of national and social life. Against these
words of God the churches have too often
set themselves in opposition. Science they
have condemned and social requirements

Ly)

resisted. We are not Christians—that is,
not reconciled to God—until these words
and laws of God are loyally accepted ; and
they are most Christian—suspected though
they be—who keep open minds, and to all
the revelations arising from new knowledge
and changed conditions reply, ‘I come to do
Thy Will, O God.’ Again I say, this is
the abiding, varying as it must in its modes
of expression, as it must in its requirements
from age to age. It is the abiding because
it can adapt itself to the teachings which
scientific, social, critical, and historical pro-
gress enforce, so that it can never be
out of date. It is the abiding because the
Spirit of Christ in man aspires to the perfect,
and therefore carries the soul onward in
pursuit of the ideal beyond the confines of
death. It is the abiding because at the same
time it is the everlastingly progressing.
Yes! the world is ever changing, and theo-
logy is no exception. It also pursues an
evolutionary development. But ‘ this is life

20

Eternal, to know Thee the only God and
Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.’ As
your old pastor and friend I bid you be
faithful to this progressive spirit. The
movement of thought will go on, the increase
of knowledge will proceed. You must appro-
priate the new knowledge, and let it work its
reshaping influence upon older adaptations.
No cowardice must enervate you ; no Papal
denunciation of Modernism arrest you :

‘ Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell.’

New works for the well-being of the
community, and especially for those who
have least of this world’s goods, will solicit
your co-operation. No selfish entrench-
ment may restrict you from sacrificing for
the good of mankind, if, indeed, you have
His Spirit Who ‘went about doing good.’
New adaptations of form and service may in
time be called for in the Church we love so
well—the Church of England, which is the

most spacious sanctuary of Spiritual freedom

21

the world has ever seen. It will be for you,
while elastic in mind and tolerant in spirit
and sympathetic in word and conduct, stoutly
to oppose a return to the obscurantism of
the past, ever defending the gains which the
great Reformation secured.

But as I stand here, now that my re-
sponsible ministry in this church—which
will ever hold a foremost place in my
heart—has come to an end, and as I
review the long years gone by, a voice
of sadness sighs in my heart, change!
change! For the great angel of change is
death ; and how much has he changed since
first I became your spiritual pastor! Forms
dear and true and generous to me are no
more present, forms from my home and
forms from my flock. My heart cries after
them, the scholar, the scientist, the artist,
the statesman, the soldier, the philanthropist
and the wise in affairs ; gracious accomplished
women, and young lives, beautiful and sweet,
on whom the joys of this world were smiling

22

their invitations—dear friends and disciples
departed—the good, the holy, the manly,
the pure in heart. Truer friends in a church
none ever had than have been mine for years.
For those departed, now in heaven, I thank
God. 1 thank God for you who remain.
I may say, in lines of Wordsworth, you
remember

‘The thought of my past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction.’

I thank God for the consideration, the
patience and affection with which you have
ever regarded me. But the time had come,
while strength remained unbroken, for me
to accept a new position with somewhat
different work ; and I accept it thankfully ;
a position of which any man may well be
proud. Painful as it is to leave the work
which may be considered the work of my
life, it is right it should be done. That
work is handed over to another whose
enlightened spirit will make him a welcome
teacher ; and I hope I may be permitted

23

from time to time to speak in this place,
crowded with memories fast bound about
my heart. But there is the final change to
be contemplated. To some of us it must
come soon. To all it will come quickly.
Let us pray that it may be to the

‘New heaven and earth wherein the just shall dwell
And after all their tribulations long

See golden days fruitful of golden deeds
With joy and love triumphing and fair truth.’

Amid all the changes which at times cast
a gloom upon our minds, and darken them
with doubt, so that we are uncertain where
is the path which leads on to truth, let us
be faithful to duty, and to love which is best,
and wait the rising of the Sun of righteous-
ness—sure that the day will dawn and the
shadows flee away.

Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas,
Ease after war, death after life does greatly please.’

With deep thanksgiving for the past,
with hearts to love and labour while life

24

shall last, with ‘ hopes which wander through
eternity,’ shedding their brightness upon us,
let us gather around the Communion Table
and keep the feast of the living and the
dead—‘ the whole family in heaven and
earth’; and then go forward each our several
way in brotherhood which death cannot dis-
solve—go forward till the end comes—‘ For
this God is our God for ever and ever. He
will be our guide unto death.’

PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON

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